Re: ot- buying a new name brand pc with xp

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Leslie Savan wrote:
> Patricia, Jon, Harry, et al.
>
> Thanks, everyone, for your advice on my monitor problem and on buying a new
> computer. I'm going to return the new monitor to Staples,
Why? It will almost certainly work with your new PC. And not all
new name-bran systems come with monitors.
> 1) In stores and online, I see that a lot of machines have XP Home--but I
> should definitely go for Pro over Home?
Yes if you intend to go inline with it. Pro has better security.
In addition, some things are done differently (which
menus/bottons, etc. one clicks on), and as most of us are, I
think, running Pro, any advice could get confusing.
> 2) This VGA card: Is this something I order from the company and they
> install it before shipping, or is this something I buy separately and add on
> my own?
It depends. Look at the spces of the system. If it says Shared
video memory, you don't have a discrete VGA card, and you should
order one and have the dealer install it. If it says ATI or
GForce Graphics card with 256 (or more) Mb Ram, it's already
installed.
> 3) I've been looking around online and I'm completely overwhelmed. Can
> anyone help me narrow down a few desktop choices (under $1000 with monitor
> and keyboard), preferably, I suppose at CDW, which Jon said had some of the
> better tech support, or Micro Center, where the closest store to me is
> Paterson, NJ.
Paterson is where I got my laptop and we got the last office PC
(a Power Spec) there too. I am very much impressed by them. Wish
I could remember my salesman's name; he was very savvy and
helpful. As I said, not all systems include monitors, so you
might want to compare prices with and without before returning
what is probably (brand, specs?) a perfectly good monitor that
just wasn't compatible with your archaic opsys. Iy you do return
it and get a system with a new monitor, you definitly want to go
somewhere where you can physically look at it.
If you have a parallel printer and want to contiune using it, you
need to check whether the system has a parallel port (few do
now); if not, there are parallel port cards that can be installed
(get the dealer to do it). (These are not the same as the
USB-to-parallel converter cards, which I think some here have
used successfully?) Of course, if you upgrade to Xy4 and install
U2, get Ghostscript (free) and GSView (nagware and worth every
cent of Ausie$30) you can print to any Windows printer using TYP
or Xy2PDF.
Acer systems (at least my laptop) come with a hard drive already
partitioned into two and a utility for making a disk image of
your C: drive (after you have cleaned out the gunk and installed
you own software) and burning it to a DVD. And doing that
periodically. If you go to the store, look on the screen of
running Acer boxes for the items in the screen shots I'm sending
offflist.
Make sure the system has at least a Gig of RAM and a DVD burner
(you'll need it, sooner or later). A card reader box (for reading
camera cards) has unexpected uses: these cards run in sizes from
1 G up, and can be used as mini hard drives. I run Xy and dBase
off one on my laptop.

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx